Research brings dignity to casino womens' stories

Six years ago, university researchers Susan Chandler and Jill Jones set out to hear the stories of women who work in Nevada's casinos.

Now as they begin pulling those stories together into a book, Jones and Chandler hope their work somehow will result in greater dignity and respect for the women with whom they talked.

"These are strong women, women who really are an asset to their communities," says Jones. She and Chandler are associate professors in the School of Social Work at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Particularly striking, the researchers found, is the loyalty the women show to their families, their communities and their co-workers.

Time and again, Chandler says, the researchers found stories of everyday heroism among the casino workers.

A political refugee who had been working on her doctorate before fleeing El Salvador, for instance, was working as a hotel housekeeper while establishing roots in the United States.

More commonly, the researchers found women who took jobs in casinos to help their families survive economically and sought out shift work so they could spend time with their families as well. Students, meanwhile, work tough shifts as cocktail waitresses to put themselves through school.

"These women are so exciting that you cannot see them as victims," Chandler says.

But their lives are difficult, too.

Particularly in Reno where, unlike Las Vegas, casino workers are only lightly unionized women in casinos often work two jobs to afford housing and food. If their husbands, too, are working multiple jobs, they face challenges with raising a family.

Worries about health are especially common among dealers, who often have spent years in the industry and the effect of second-hand smoke tops their worries after years spent within a few feet of gaming customers who often have a cigarette in their hands.

"The older dealers are almost desperate with worry. They see people around them with cancer and lung disease," says Jones.

Younger women in casinos aren't immune from health worries. Cocktail waitresses, for instance, who tote heavy trays of drinks, begin feeling the effects in their feet and back after a few years on the job.

Along with health worries, Chandler and Jones found a sense of regret among some longtime workers in casinos, particularly the dealers who have high status on the gaming floor.

In focus groups and interviews, the dealers commonly told the researchers that they were drawn to the casino business by the opportunity to make a good living, but never intended to stay. As middle age approaches, they feel pangs at the loss of their earlier dreams.

Those regrets reflect, in part, the changing career paths in the industry.

When the gaming industry was dominated by family-owned properties, women sometimes climbed the ladder from the casino floor or the hotel housekeeping staff into mid-level management positions, Jones and Chandler found.

But as the gaming industry has increasing become the turf of large, publicly held companies run by business-school graduates, women believe they have fewer opportunities for advancement, the researchers found.

Initially, Chandler and Jones set out to learn what effects economic globalization might have on women in casinos particularly immigrant workers in low-skill positions.

But intrigued by the stories they heard and motivated by the lack of attention that workers in the industry have gotten they widened the scope of their studies. The work, which has included visits with social service experts, educators and other professionals along with interviews of the worker themselves, has been supported by a couple of small grants.